PowerReviews has already shown that online reviews and other User Generated Content (UGC) can increase sales conversion by up to 17%. Brands and retailers can see this overall effect when they start enabling reviews. But taking a closer look, do you notice that some quality products in your catalog have few or no reviews? Is this something that could be targeted and changed to get more UGC and raise the conversion rate of underselling items?
The short answer is – yes. The long answer is – yes and here’s how.
Identify Your Products With Low or No Coverage
PowerReviews’ clients are already familiar with our reporting capabilities – here are some ways these can work for your less-covered products. We highlight coverage metrics in our reporting – identifying those items with high traffic but low review volume. Obviously there is interest in these products due to the traffic, so these are ripe for increasing UGC to raise conversion.
Our reporting platform generally can ‘slice and dice’ your data to find exactly what you need to target. If you found a high traffic / low reviewed item, for example, you may then want to add a post purchase email campaign to elicit more UGC or follow up with a second post purchase email to remind those consumers to come back to write a review.
PowerReviews Products That Help to Increase UGC
The first part of solving the low or no coverage dilemma is to identify your catalog products that need some help by using reporting. But now you’ve got to remedy the situation of low reviews.
Content collection rates have been shown to increase up to 400% with Review Your Purchases. This product addresses another issue related to catalog items with low to no UGC. In the apparel industry, for example, an average consumer may purchase four items in a single online transaction. Getting a review for just one of those items may be simple, but it’s historically difficult to encourage the consumer to go to several different review pages to review each of the purchased items. With Review Your Purchases, this problem is solved by use of a simple, one-step form that allows buyers to write multiple reviews without leaving the page.
Our Why Did You Buy offering, on the other hand, addresses the need to have more User Generated Content in general, not just by reviews, especially for different buying verticals. Seasonal items, like bathing suits or holiday decorations, have a small window for purchasing sometimes making standard reviews too late to be valuable for raising conversion during the current short season.
When using Why Did You Buy, the consumer purchases the online catalog item, and as a Thank You page appears post-sale, the buyer is simply asked “Why did you buy?” This allows an immediate and easy response about the product, such as “The pattern of this bikini is so flattering,” or “This Santa is perfect for our front door.” Others viewing the product on your site will see other buyers’ content, instilling more trust in the item, all because the UGC was increased.
Coverage –> Confidence –> Conversion!
PowerReviews believes that product coverage translates into confidence, which then translates to sales conversion. The more User Generated Content a consumer sees on a specific product, the more confidence they have in it in order to encourage them to complete the purchase.
To learn more about strategies to increase overall product coverage, check out our From Reviews to Revenue report.